


the other eight

by closingdoors



Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Balcony Scene, Canon Divergence - Iron Man 1, F/M, Tony Talks About Afghanistan: A Fic, WAAAAAAAAA, balcony kiss, idk if this should be rated t or m so i went with t but now: Panic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-02 14:55:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15798858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/closingdoors/pseuds/closingdoors
Summary: IM1. A kiss on a balcony.





	1. Chapter 1

 

 **"There is no shame in being hungry for another person. There is no shame in wanting very much to share your life with somebody.”  
**  
**\- Augusten Burroughs**

 

* * *

 

 

His first thought is that she tastes like vodka. 

It's jarring. His girls always taste of alcohol, yet he expects Pepper to be different. It's an underlying taste, but still there and his most common vice, so he picks up on this first. He feels her hand fist around the fabric of his tux, tightening it around his elbow, and then comes the taste of olives.  _Vodka martini,_ he thinks. 

When Pepper grazes her teeth lightly against his lower lip, he's pleasantly surprised to discover she's a good kisser. 

He moves, rests a hand on her hip, the other wrapping around to the bare skin of her back. A delightful hum is muffled as it escapes her lips. Now he's intrigued by the other sounds she can make. What else her tongue can do other than twist impossibly in his mouth. He lets the hand on her back travel, ghosting the tips of his fingers from the bottom of her spine all the way up. She shivers against him, pressing herself closer, their chests mashed together now. She  _must_ be able to feel how this situation is affecting him, yet she doesn't pull away, and when he nips at her lower lip she moans. It's his undoing.

 

Pepper hates how many times she's thought about this. It's better in reality.

Before she can gather her wits, she has his bowtie half-loosened and fisted in her hand. She drags him closer towards her by it, horrified by how thrilled she is when he follows, eager to please. She finds herself walking backwards, tripping really, him following, their lips still connected, her knuckles brushing against his throat. She can feel his Adam's apple bob, the way his muscles move as his lips work over hers mercilessly. It's not a wonder to her anymore how he's always managed to bring home a new girl every night. 

Her back presses against a wall. Now she's trapped between two solid surfaces, and his lips rip away from hers just to attach themselves to her neck, never biting or sucking hard enough to leave a mark, and then his hand is wrapping itself around her thigh and trying to anchor it over her hip and of course  _now_ the dress chooses to be inconvenient and not stretch -

"Stop," she gasps the third time he tries to hitch her leg up. The fabric will rip if he carries on.

Tony's hand on her leg stills. 

But so do his ministrations on the skin of her neck, which is exactly the opposite of what she wants. 

"Okay," Tony gets out, voice low and gravelly. Her stomach pools with warmth. His forehead brushes against hers as he releases her leg. "Sorry."

"What for?"

Tony tries to step back, but she holds him in place with her grip on his tie. He has a tortured sort of look on his face when she tightens her grip.

"You said..." He's looking at her inquisitively now. "You said stop."

 _Oh._ Oh. Idiots - both of them. 

"I didn't mean - I just meant - " 

Now that she has the chance to think, Pepper finds herself pausing. Tony seems to sense her hesitation. He doesn't try to move away from her, but he doesn't have his hands on her anymore either, and at this point she's not sure which she wants more. This is why she's never crossed this line with him, in all her years working as his assistant. It's kept things uncomplicated. Things now - not just with them, but with Tony, with the company - things aren't uncomplicated anymore. In fact, she's pretty sure both she and Tony are going to be out of jobs at the rate he's self-destructing. So maybe it's time to have a little complicated in her life.

"I meant," she says, pushing his hair away from his face, "not here."

 

Tony slips the valet a hundred dollars to meet him with his car round the back of the venue. Pepper disappears to the washroom and by the time Tony's switching the engine on and looking out for any eagle eyes (this, he thinks, is the first time he's ever had to hide a girl from the press) she reappears with her lip gloss back in place and her purse in her hand. He has to pull away quickly when he spots the Vanity Fair reporter - what had her name been, Crissy? - heading out the back door and towards them. Pepper normally reprimands him for the way he drives, but she keeps quiet as the wheels spin and he goes from nought to sixty in six seconds.

There's a nervousness clinging to him. The girls he takes home normally - he never wonders if they'll leave, or if they do, he's always confident in his ability to walk right back, flash a smile, and have another handful of women eating out of his palm. It's the way his world has always worked, so he's never questioned it. Pepper, though - he doesn't want her to change her mind. He doesn't want anyone else tonight. Or for a long time. But that's too much to unpack, so he closes that box and shoves it firmly to the back of his brain.

Pepper doesn't change her mind. The minute they pull up outside his house and the engine's off, she's on him. He half-considers just pulling her onto his lap and letting it happen right here in the driver's seat. The dress she's wearing doesn't enough leeway for that though, and he really wants to see her out of it, so he pulls himself together long enough to get out of the car and follow her to the front door.

 

Pepper expects frantic. She expects fast, and messy, and for him to be a little bit selfish. 

They get through the door and Tony offers her a drink.

Out of shock, Pepper accepts. She sets her purse on the counter and watches him make her a vodka martini - how he knows that's her drink of choice, she has no idea - and pour himself one too. Pepper gulps it greedily while Tony stares at her over the rim of his glass, drinking steadily. There's something predatory about the way he looks at her now. It's different to the tender way he'd looked at her on the dance floor. And isn't that how this all started?

They finish their drinks in silence. Pepper sets her glass down on the martini and the clink of the glass seems too loud for the room. Tony approaches her, eyes never leaving hers.

"I meant it, you know," he says. "You look fantastic." 

She wonders how many other women he's said that to. "Thank you."

He cups the side of her throat with his right hand, his thumb pressing against her lips. She presses a kiss to the pad of his skin. His hands are worn, calloused. Rough from work. They're one of her favourite parts about him, she thinks. 

"Pepper."

The kiss this time is tentative. He kisses her like it's the first time all over again.

Instead of drawing her closer, they stay apart. She tries to deepen the kiss, but he's determined to keep things soft. It's maddening at first. Then she feels herself gentle, falling into cadence with him, and he pulls away just to tell her to turn around. She does.

Tony pushes her hair over one shoulder and dusts a light kiss against the top of her vertebrae. Then the next. And the next. Pepper holds her breath as he works his way down. He's certainly not done this with any of the girls he's brought home before. She doesn't know why the thought makes her want to cry. Pepper holds on to the kitchen counter instead.

He reaches the lowest bit of skin he can with her dress still on. His hands settle on her hips and then travel, to the skin of her back, then her waist, and then under the fabric, to her stomach. Her must feel the way her muscles contract at his touch. She can feel his smile against the small of her back. Pepper understands what he's asking for without really asking, and shrugs the dress off of her shoulders. It catches around her hips but Tony stretches the fabric there until it pools at her feet, leaving her standing in just a pair of panties.

Pepper turns to him, ready to point out how unfair it is that she's practically naked and he's still fully clothed, but finds her mouth dry when she finds him still on his knees. He props his chin against her stomach, smiling up at her, eyes returning to their soft look once again. His hands curl around the back of her thighs and then he presses a kiss against her left hipbone. Her legs almost give out.

 

Pepper's hands find his shoulders. Tony slips the suit jacket off carelessly, and when he tries to do the same with his bow tie she stops him, wrapping the silk around her hand. He smirks at that but she simply lifts her eyebrows, unashamed. 

He discards his shirt as easily as his jacket. He intends to go back to worshipping the muscles of her abdomen, but Pepper stops him.

"How about a swim?" She suggests, voice low and warm, like he's able to say  _no_ to her right now anyway.

Tony lifts himself to his feet. He takes her hand before leading them to the pool. He does it without thinking. The way she grips his back shows surprise on her end. 

They both lose the rest of their clothes on their way to the pool. He finds it hard to keep his eyes  _and_ his hands off of her, but he wants to do this right, if there is a right way to do whatever it is they're doing. With Pepper, it's all or nothing. And that terrifies him. So he has to do this  _right._

Light emanates from the pool, illuminating them both in blue. Pepper's the first to lower herself in. Her body slips into the water gracefully without making a splash. It settles around her collarbones. When he joins her, the water ripples around them. It sloshes over her shoulders, her hair floating with it. One of her wet hands lifts to cup his cheek. 

"Tell me about it," she requests, and he doesn't have to ask what.

 

It's the first time she's seen the arc reactor since she helped him replace the old one with the new. She's known it in panicked terms, as another one of his projects in his workshop, not as casually as this. She forgets that this is his every day now. That the light is always there, whether he attempts to hide it under layers of shirts or not. Pepper drifts towards him, fingers running along the circumference of the reactor. After, Tony drifts away, until he's floating on his back. 

"I wasn't alone in the cave," he tells her. Pepper rests her hand against his wrist, which floats by her chest. "There was another man there. Yinsen. Brilliant guy. Genius, actually. Saved my life." 

He doesn't want to tell her, but she asks anyway. "What happened to him?"

Tony sniffs. "What happens to everyone around me. He died."

This time, she doesn't ask. She doesn't want to know how. She can surmise enough. Pepper curls her fingers around his wrist and tugs him closer, so that he begins drifting towards her.

"His original electromagnet involved a car battery. I had to carry it around for weeks."

Tony's body bumps against hers. 

"You made improvements," she observes.

"Don't I always?"

Pepper runs her fingers down the length of his forearm and then back up. He won't look at her, continues staring up at the empty night sky instead. It's easy to feel like they're the only two people out here when it's like this. She wants this to be the kind of feeling he remembers. The endless waves of the ocean stretching ahead of them, the night sky a canvas above them. She wants him to remember the vastness; the possibility. It's the kind of memory he needs.

"They tortured me," Tony confesses quietly. She takes care not to grip him tightly. "They wanted me to build them the Jericho. There's only so much torture I could - "

He doesn't finish. Pepper pushes her feet off of the ground and lets her body float to the surface, so that she's weightless too. They both stare up at the same sky. 

"You didn't build it for them," she reassures him. She doesn't know if it's true or not, but the word  _torture_ came out of Tony's mouth and confirmed her nightmares to be true. "Tony?"

"No. I didn't. If there'd been more torture, less time to build - well, I don't know."

"Build what?"

Tony's hand finds hers. 

"The terrorists that held me... they had my weapons. They killed the soldiers I was in the middle of talking to with them. That's why I can't - Pepper, I don't know what I'm gonna do. The only thing I know is that I can't go back to the way things used to be."

Pepper sighs. She wishes it could be that easy. That she could go back to being the overworked assistant and he the eccentric boss who had a lot of daddy issues to work through but no memories of torture or death. Ironic, really, considering how he built weapons. 

"I know."

"I'm sorry."

"I know you're sorry," she replies. "You shouldn't be. You were held  _captive_ , Tony."

Tony stays silent, so Pepper says something true: "I'm just glad you're alive."

She hears him inhale sharply.

"Yeah?"

Pepper squeezes his hand. 

"Definitely."

 

When Pepper kisses him this time, he doesn't expect it, so they both dip under the water. He scrambles to push them back up to the surface. Her mascara is smudged around her eyes but she's smiling at him anyway, hair completely soaked, just as his is. She ropes her arms around his neck and kisses him again, their bodies brushing together beneath the water. He begins to wonder how she can stand to touch him after the things he's told her. When he has the glowing symbol of his capture in his chest. It signifies his weakness; his mortality - and most importantly, the ways he is able to keep himself alive, but never anyone else. Why does he never get to save anyone else?

"Tony," Pepper murmurs. He hadn't realised she'd stopped kissing him. 

"I'm good."

Pepper doesn't believe him and he doesn't blame her. 

"How about we go inside?" 

Tony nods. He starts to ask JARVIS to have towels ready for them but Pepper lifts herself up and out of the water without a care. She waits in the doorway for him, her body silhouetted in the light. He follows her like a siren's call. Maybe that's what she is to him, really. He has very few weaknesses. She's definitely one of them.

Pepper's the one to lead him up to his bedroom. The confidence she carries without realising makes his heart beat faster which is both wonderful and terrifying. The thought makes him grin.

He wants his hands on her. Yet when they entire the bedroom, he stops. This light is different to outside. His bedroom is warm tones. The beacon in his chest is the only sharp blue - he sticks out. Pepper doesn't seem to mind, though. She unwraps the tie from her hand and dangles it from her fingers as she heads towards the bed, glancing back at him over her shoulder. He wonders how the hell he managed to wait ten years before being here with her. Her lips curl into a devious smile.

"Well. Shall we?"

 

 

 

  

Once Tony's asleep, Pepper finally lets herself breathe. Her whole body is thrumming with afterglow. She's pleasantly spent.

Truthfully, she'd prepared herself for Tony to be - well, selfish. She _knows_ him. He's used to taking. And taking and taking. She'd assumed he'd be no different in the bedroom. She's pleased to know that he couldn't be any more the opposite.

The light of the arc reactor bounces in the room as Tony shifts in his sleep. Pepper settles so that her back's facing him. The arc reactor makes her think too much. Especially about the words he said in the workshop.  _I don't have anyone but you._ How he's always saying too much to her without meaning to. What the hell that means, or why it matters to her anyway.

Tony shifts and then he's pressed against her. Pepper waits for an arm to be slung carelessly over her waist, claiming her. It doesn't. She peers at him over her shoulder curiously. She finds his back's pressed against hers. Pepper smiles to herself as she turns, slipping her arm around Tony, causing him to become the little spoon. It's a nice compromise. This way she gets to be close to him without having the arc reactor shining in her eyes. Not that she wants to be close to him - she knows Tony, that his girls are only ever one night affairs, that she's the one who gets their dry cleaning sorted and organises a car to take them home. She'll have to do all of this for herself in the morning. She really ought to stay in the guest bedroom. 

But it's nice. Being like this with him. It's nice. So, for now, she stays.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I already used "goodnight and go" for the college AU, but I encourage you all to listen to the Ariana Grande version while reading this. It's a perfect song for pre-relationship Tony/Pepper as it is, but it also inspired this fic.

Three hours after Tony goes to bed with Pepper, Christine Everhart shows up on his doorstep.

 

Pepper wakes when the sky is still dark and finds the bed empty. She yawns into the pillow and slips out from under the sheets, goosebumps eliciting over her skin. She takes Tony's robe - she'll just return it in the morning - to cross the hall to the guest bedroom, which she's often thought of as  _hers,_ considering up until now she's the only non-sexual guest Tony ever has stay. The bed in this room has always been luxurious to her. Now, though, it just feels too big. She doesn't let herself think about it, and closes her eyes to go back to sleep.

 

Tony has the misfortune of discovering Christine. He's getting water, trying to be quick so he can back to the warmth of his bed and Pepper, but he spots something in the corner of his eye. 

There's no way he can avoid her after making eye contact with her. He decides to just rip the band-aid off. He heads over to the door, grateful he'd pulled on sweats and a t-shirt which covers the arc reactor.

"Listen. Crissy - "

"Christine," she corrects, leaning against the doorway.

"I couldn't care less what your name is. I've been stalked before, I've seen the signs, and let me just tell you it doesn't go anywhere."

Christine shakes her head. "God, does your ego ever end?"

"You would know."

Christine lifts one of her hands, revealing a manila envelope. 

"Ever heard of Gulmira?" 

Tony stills. "What?"

Christine shoves the envelope into his hands. Tony opens it to reveal the photographs inside. His idle daydreams of getting back in bed with Pepper are already gone.

 

 

 

 

In the morning, Pepper does for herself what she would normally do for the girls he brings back with him. She has her dress dry cleaned, locates her underwear and packs it discreetly, and arranges for a car to pick her up. The main difference is that she has to return Tony's robe. His bedroom is still empty when she enters. She finds herself making the bed, which isn't her job at all, but something about folding down and smoothing the sheets is cathartic. 

After a mug of coffee and a slice of toast, she heads downstairs to the workshop to find Tony. It's a Saturday, her day off, so she doesn't need to hang around to work. She just wants to say goodbye. She finds the workshop is empty and still. Pepper pauses on the steps. Well - she hadn't considered he'd literally run away from her. 

Pepper meets Happy outside to take her home. He's pleasant - he went on a date last night, he tells her, and he thinks he has a shot at getting a second - so she listens to his good news patiently. She's tied her hair up to hide how messy it's become and changed into a spare skirt suit she had in the closet of the guest room. There's no reason for Happy, or anyone, to believe that she did anything other than escort her drunk boss home from the fundraiser the night before. It's her story and she's sticking to it for as long as people accept it. 

Because people like Happy can't see the hickeys Tony's dotted along her collarbones and the rash on the inside of her thighs from his goatee.

 

Tony, on his end, does not have a lot of time to think about Pepper. He's robbed of the first morning after. He forgets to leave a note. Pepper's always around, though, so he doesn't think to explain his disappearance. Not until he gets home from confronting Obadiah with the photos and finds the house empty. He's left alone with his thoughts, Obadiah's betrayal, and news coverage of Gulmira. It's not a good mix for sane ideas.

 

 

 

 

The first day Pepper returns to work, the house is still empty. She asks JARVIS for Tony's location. The AI, for once, doesn't do as she asks. Pepper swallows uncomfortably against the feeling. She's never considered herself disposable. Tony  _needs_ her as his assistant. But - well, they crossed a line. One she always told herself she wouldn't. Maybe it's best to draw up her resignation letter. Maybe it's not her specifically Tony needs, he just needs anyone ready to take care of him.

Two hours later, however, he shows up. There's shards of glass on the stairs. Pepper takes the steps carefully, navigating the mess on heels. The windows are shattered, too, no need to use the door. She looks up to find Tony wrapped up in some sort of armour that's being taken apart by machines. There are bullet holes in the metal. Her world goes sideways before she catches her next breath. She keeps walking towards him anyway.

 

 

 

 

"You're all I have too, you know," Pepper says, the words out of her mouth before she can stop them. 

Tony swallows and nods. Why do they both keep saying too much around each other? They're prolonging her inevitable resignation. He's behaving differently of late, a better kind of different, but it doesn't make what they did any less wrong. It's a breach of her contract. Of her own morals. They're going to have to part sometime.

Pepper takes the drive and reaches the doorway - the intact one - without thinking to look back. Then there's a hand on her arm. Pepper turns and Tony's stood with her. Crossed the room so silently she hadn't noticed. Pepper starts to ask if there's anything else he needs, but then his lips are on hers. She stumbles, but his arm wraps around her waist, steadying her. He kisses her fiercely, until her knees are weak, until her hands rake through his hair, until her back bumps against the doorway and she's dangerously close to initiating a round two. Tony doesn't  _do_ round two - 

Tony releases her as suddenly as he'd been on her. Pepper can feel her lips are swollen. She licks them automatically and his eyes fall back down to them, his hair sticking out at odd angles, his arm unravelling from her waist. She uses the doorframe to support her weight.

He nods again. Like confirming something. Pepper's not sure what she should say, so she doesn't say anything at all.

 

 

 

 

Pepper almost makes it out of Obadiah's office without being made. 

"Is that today's paper?"

Pepper steels herself. She plants a smile on her face.

"Yes."

"Do you mind?"

Obadiah encroaches her personal space, taking the paper before she's replied.

"Not at all," she says, fighting to keep her voice neutral, despite the bile building in her stomach.  _He paid to have Tony killed,_ her mind reminds her, and the bile works it way up to her throat.

"Puzzle."

"Of course."

She gives him the best smile she possibly can. She braces her spine and makes it to the doorway.

"Oh, and Pepper?"

Pepper glances over her shoulder. Obadiah is back at his desk now, leaning against it, the paper in his hands traded for a manila envelope. He pulls out what looks like a photograph. She can see the sheen on the paper, but not the photograph itself. Not until Obadiah holds it up, facing her, and she recognises the photograph all too easily. Her and Tony, lost in the moment, pressed up against a wall in the far corner of that balcony, where for once she hadn't thought about who would be around to see them. There's no mistaking their identities. His broad shoulders are too easy to know as his, her red hair is a dead giveaway, and half of her profile is visible from the angle the photo is taken. 

"You should be more careful," Obadiah warns her, "we wouldn't want these leaking to the press."

"No," Pepper agrees. She clings to the drive in her hand anyway. "We wouldn't."

 

 

 

 

"It's too bad you had to involve Pepper in all of this. I would've preferred she lived," Stane says, and that's how Tony knows that he'll kill Obadiah. He won't have him arrested, let him rot away in a cell for the rest of his life, while his name and reputation are tarnished. No, he'll kill him himself.

 

 

 

 

Tony doesn't let her take him to the hospital. 

The arc reactor's light is dim but steady. Happy meets them outside the former arc reactor building, looking a little green when he sees the suit Tony's in, the blood smeared across his skin, and how much of his weight he's bearing on Pepper. They both carefully manoeuvre him to lay down on the backseat. It's clunky around all the metal he's encased in. 

They've already given their statements to Agent Coulson, who's securing the scene, and for once Pepper doesn't want to be around to fix the mess. Coulson assures her that he'll be in touch with alibis and a cover for Stane's death. Pepper sits in the passenger seat next to Happy and tries not to think about the fact she just murdered a man. Instead, she listens to Happy's tale of the second date he has planned for next weekend.

Happy helps Pepper get Tony down to the workshop, where his machinery begins to detach the suit from Tony's body. She dismisses Happy and watches Dummy sweep the last of the glass from the floor until Tony is free of the suit. She steers him towards the couch with antiseptic and bandages she'd found in his bathroom upstairs. If Tony wants to argue, he doesn't, so she sits beside him and cleans his wounds. She has to strip him of his vest top to wrap his chest - she's pretty sure one of his ribs is broken, but he insists on no doctors - and his hands settle on her shoulders as she does. He stares at her for too long as he cleans the last of the blood from a graze on his temple, and when she stars to pull away, his hand curls around her wrist and pulls her to straddle his lap. Pepper sighs when they kiss.

This time, they're gentle with each other. 

 

 

 

 

Pepper tells him about the photos one hour before his press conference.

"He didn't leak them," she adds quickly. "I think he planned to - to kill us, and then dirty both our reputations. Maybe even frame us." 

Tony clenches his fist.

"While you were sleeping, I went and got them. Wiped them from his hard drive. These are the only hard copies I could find."

Pepper places the envelope in front of him. Tony doesn't look at the photos. He remembers everything about that night. He doesn't need to see the invasion, he doesn't want to poison the bubble they'd been in. It's better to remember it as it had been - just him and Pepper, doing something that was long overdue.

Tony tosses them into the fireplace. Pepper has a strange look on her face when he glances at her. She watches the envelope burn up. She doesn't explain why she helped him, even with the knowledge of these photos. Pepper, who has always been concerned about his image, who'd reprimanded him for dancing with her in front of a hall full of people. She'd helped him anyway, even though the entire world could have seen photos of her making out with his boss.

Pepper guides him upstairs, to where his suit - the clothing kind, this time - is waiting for him. Happy pulls up when she's fussing with his hair, using product to try and make it PG-rated enough for TV. He briefly wonders if she'd told Happy about them, or about the photos, but he keeps his mouth shut. Because of course she hasn't. He doesn't need to ask to know.

 

 

 

 

 

"You know, if I were Iron Man I'd have this girlfriend who knew my true identity. She'd be a wreck. She'd always be worrying that I was gonna die yet so man of the man I'd become. She'd be wildly conflicted - which would only make her more crazy about me," he rambles. He clears his throat. Pepper decides to refold his pocket square. He'd wanted to go with something bright red. It'd taken her three tries to convince him to go for a neutral, not-Iron-Man-color. "Pepper."

"You're not Iron Man," she reminds him gently, refolding the fabric and placing it in his pocket.

"I could be."

"Tony," she sighs. "I'm resigning."

His hand reaches out and grips her arm. "What? No. I don't accept."

"I already accepted on your behalf," she tells him. What she doesn't tell him is that's wildly illegal, but she's aware he doesn't know that. "I have twenty-two days left of my notice period."

"What are you - " He squints are her. "What? Is it the Iron Man thing? You don't wanna work for Iron Man?"

Pepper slips his hand off her arm.

"We slept together, Tony. We  _keep_ sleeping together," she says, with more steel in her voice than she intends. His gaze drops to her neck. "It's unprofessional and a breach of my contract. God, Stane almost plastered those photos across the world. Don't you see that? I can't keep working for you."

A runner with a clipboard and headset appears. "Mr Stark? Twenty seconds."

Tony hesitates. Pepper nudges him. He begins to follow the runner but pauses to look back at her.

"This isn't over."

 

 

 

 

Tony doesn't bring up her resignation for twenty-two days. In fact, she barely sees him for twenty-two days. He's too busy being Iron Man, which makes her want to pull her hair out. All he'd needed to do was  _stick to the damn cards._ For once in his life, all he had to do was listen to orders, and then he could carry on doing whatever it is he wants to do. Yet now he's flying out of the house at all kinds of hours and she only sees him every few days when he cat naps. The papers are plastered with his name, with the good deeds he's doing, and while she's proud, she's scared of the day he flies out to stop terrorists but doesn't make it back. He tells her that won't happen. She worries anyway.

For once, Pepper doesn't have a lot of damage control to do. The press is good press. People are grateful. Children send fanmail. A few too many women send photos of themselves in Iron Man underwear. Some men, too. She places the indecent images to one side. Tony never looks at them, but he keeps every bit of the fanmail he receives from children. 

The twenty-second day arrives and Pepper goes about setting things up for her replacement, who Tony is yet to hire. He insists that he's too busy, that he doesn't need an assistant, but she sets up candidates for interviews anyway. It's not up to her to make him go to them anymore. 

She's about to finish up for the day, a little underwhelmed, when Tony gets home. He's able to free himself of the suit without the need for machinery now. She has to admit, the improvements he's made on the suit are impressive. She's just pulling her coat on when Tony hops up the stairs in just jeans and a t-shirt. He crosses the room towards her and pushes her coat down her arms, his mouth covering hers and any words she's going to say. They shouldn't do this, she knows, but she can't bring herself to stop, not when she's leaving anyway. The coat lands on the floor and his t-shirt follows it. Then her blouse, and her skirt, and his jeans. She keeps her heels on. Tony doesn't complain.

 

"By the way," he says sometime later, when she's pulling her skirt back on and he's watching her from the couch, "I'm making you CEO."

Pepper stumbles. She stares at him, half-dressed and furious. He thinks she's the most beautiful woman he's ever met.

"What?"

"I'm making you CEO," he repeats. "I checked. I'm able of appointing my own successor." 

"You can't just - "

"I can."

Pepper grabs her blouse. Her hair has a little static to it, making individual strands lift up into the air. He thinks about the way that hair had moved against the couch cushions not five minutes before.

"I don't accept."

"Yes, you do."

"You're CEO."

"Not anymore. You are. Hell, I don't want the company anymore Pepper. I'm Iron Man."

He doesn't tell her about the purple veins that are blossoming around his arc reactor. In their haste, she hadn't noticed them. He's got a couple theories on what they might mean.

He'll tell her once he's sure. 

"You can't just give me the company because I slept with you."

Pepper does the buttons of her blouse quickly, tucking it back into her skirt. She begins to search for more clothes - probably her underwear - while he stares at her. Something like hurt worms its way into his chest before he can quash it.

"I'm giving you the company because you're the most capable person I know. Because you should've been running a company five, ten years ago. Not working for me."

He puts as much sincerity into his voice as he can. It seems to work, because she pauses. There's a hickey on her jaw, he realises, something he'd been so careful to avoid giving her in places she couldn't hide. Now he aches to leave his mark, for people to know what they've done, what they keep doing. It's primitive. Pepper'll kill him once she realises. He can't bring himself to regret it.

Pepper faces him. "Okay."

"Are you accepting?"

"Yes. I am."

"I have another proposal for you," he tells her. Her eyes widen. "Not like that. Not yet." 

Pepper's jaw hangs open. He decides to keep the ring he's bought for her a secret. Still, he stands from the couch, pulling his t-shirt back on, his jeans. Pepper doesn't move. 

"I told you before. That if I were Iron Man, I'd have this girlfriend. And now - well, now you're not working for me. So?"

Pepper blinks. "So... what?"

"What do you say?" He asks. She continues to stare. There are simpler ways of asking this, he knows, but the truth is he hasn't actually done this before. "Would you want to..."

"Oh," Pepper gasps. Colour rises to her cheeks. "Are you asking me - ?"

"Yeah."

Pepper traps her lower lip with her teeth. He reaches out and presses his thumb against her chin, tugging on it lightly until she releases the abused bit of flesh. He wants to kiss her. He won't, not unless she gives him an answer. 

"Yes," she replies quietly. "Yes, Tony, I'll - "

He muffles the rest of her words with a kiss. 

They're front page news by the end of the week.


End file.
